beach time and distance education

I went to the beach today. I write this not to brag about where I live (though I could) or to boast how great it is to live only 20 minutes from the ocean (though it is). I won’t even go on about how lovely it is to sit in a beach chair, with feet in the sand, hearing the waves crash on the shore, while the sun beats down all around (though it is beginning to sound like I am going on about it). I only mention going to the beach today to illustrate a point – the any where, any time benefits of distance education. While at the beach I read two chapters in the Handbook of Distance Education.

I am not actually taking my class – EDTEC 650 – through distance education. However, I could be. I have taken about twenty classes through distance education in the past and EDTEC 650 is currently offered in both on campus and online formats. I also had my computer with a wireless broadband modem with me at the beach. (am i really that sick?) So I could have been sitting there logged on to the class web site, reading and posting messages to Dr. Saba as well as other students in the class, while at the same time referring to my textbook. Distance education, like perhaps no other course delivery method, allows this flexibility. That is one reason I am so keenly interested in distance education.

Ah, but alas, I am not so interested in distance education only to integrate my own pleasure trips with my studies. Rather, I am interested in the field of distance education because it provides others, from not only other parts of the United States but also from other parts of the world, the exact same educational opportunities as I enjoy. This leads me to the first chapter I read today – Culture and Online Education – by Gunawardena, Wilson, & Nolla (2003). This is a topic of great interest to me. As I wrote on Tuesday, within the field of distance education, I am most interested in how culture affects online learning. This interest stems from my living overseas for about seven years and from my experience working as an instructor in the semiconductor equipment industry.

In my early adult life I lived in England for about two-and-a-half years while serving in the Air Force. A few years later I returned to England for about another two years; during that stay I worked for a computer maintenance company. After leaving England I moved directly to Japan where I lived for about another two-and-a-half years. Those experiences gave me some appreciation for other cultures. While teaching in the semiconductor equipment industry many of my students were from several European and Asian countries. I taught both at company headquarters in the United States and at various customer sites in Asia and Europe. My teaching experience served to increase my exposure to and interest in other cultures. My experience teaching and developing training for people from other cultures, coupled with my experience taking many online courses, has served to solidify my interest in how culture affects online learning.

Unfortunately, I have taken too much time today writing about far too little. Thus I must leave any real discussion of Culture and Online Education to another time. Stay tuned.

Gunawardena, C. N., Wilson, P. L., & Nolla, A. C. (2003). Culture and online education. In M. G. Moore & W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (pp. 753-775). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.